Doom 3 source code to be released. What does this mean for TDM? - by SubJeff
New Horizon on 4/8/2011 at 23:52
I think we should be able to optimize a fair bit...what kind of gains that will lead to remains to be seen. I'm hopeful that we'll be able to reduce loading times. :) Now that we'll should be better able to craft the sound prop, and AI navigation systems. I think a lot of the AI navigation is done at map load, I hope we'll be able to have that stuff compiled during the dmapping stage and ship it with the missions so it only has to be loaded, rather than compiled at load time. I could be wrong on how that works, but yeah....I hope we'll be able to improve performance and really tighten the ship up.
Albert on 5/8/2011 at 00:33
This is probably not such a big aspect of TDM, but how about implementing lightmap creation so that the system requirements can be dropped down a bit. I think it would look better than that ugly shadow rendering that Doom 3 had. Also, it would be alot quicker to implement than what Volca had discussed on the OPDE page (I'm too lazy, to go see what exactly it was). At least, I believe the ID Tech 4 source will carry lightmap rendering like the earlier versions ...
Woah, I just made some noise! :eek:
Back to my secret, underground lair...
(Though seriously, does that sound feasible?)
New Horizon on 5/8/2011 at 00:44
Quote Posted by Albert
This is probably not such a big aspect of TDM, but how about implementing lightmap creation so that the system requirements can be dropped down a bit. I think it would look better than that ugly shadow rendering that Doom 3 had. Also, it would be alot quicker to implement than what Volca had discussed on the OPDE page (I'm too lazy, to go see what exactly it was). At least, I believe the ID Tech 4 source will carry lightmap rendering like the earlier versions ...
Woah, I just made some noise! :eek:
Back to my secret, underground lair...
(Though seriously, does that sound feasible?)
Rather than have to rebuild all our current maps to accommodate retrofitting the engine with light maps, it would make more sense to optimize the current rendering techniques and soften the shadows. :erg: The doom 3 engine doesn't have high requirements by today's standards...all the extra computing that TDM does adds some performance drain...but with the source code, we can hopefully reduce that drain.
Quote Posted by lost_soul
For starters, they could probably rip everything out of the engine that only pertains to Doom 3 and not TDM. They could ship their own executable that may use less memory. I hope TDM's memory consumption can be decreased.
That is always a possibility, but not a top priority. Ripping stuff out of the engine wouldn't really do us any good, it's the shared D3 game assets that would slow us down from making a stand alone TDM. If members of the community would be willing to commit some time to help us replace those assets, it could definitely happen...but I wouldn't hold my breath.
lost_soul on 5/8/2011 at 00:44
For starters, they could probably rip everything out of the engine that only pertains to Doom 3 and not TDM. They could ship their own executable that may use less memory. I hope TDM's memory consumption can be decreased.
nbohr1more on 5/8/2011 at 01:57
Light map support could work just like another material shader stage so it wouldn't necessarily cause any big problems for the engine or existing maps.
That said, 2D light maps are old and busted. 3D Volumetric Light Maps are the new hotness. The performance drop for sampling a low resolution 3D texture is not significantly larger than a 2D one so perhaps we will see one monolithic 3D texture light map for the stage (ambient light) and various 2D and 3D texture light projections.
The biggest performance improvement would not be adding light maps, it would be changing the shadow calculation, animation bone calculations and visibility culling methods.
lost_soul on 5/8/2011 at 02:17
Cool, now when are you guys going to implement Windows 98 support? :)
J/K
demagogue on 5/8/2011 at 02:32
From the TDM wiki: "So there is hope that idTech4 (the engine behind Doom 3 and Quake 4) will also be open sourced. For The Dark Mod this means that we can fix a long list of issues that are currently not possible. (
http://modetwo.net/darkmod/wiki/index.php?title=IdTech4_Open_Source) Here is a small, incomplete list, in no particular order:"
jtr7 on 5/8/2011 at 03:34
Well well, it looks like there will be something for the USA for Thanksgiving, if not roughly a Christmas present for modders world-wide, to carry a fresh torch into a Western New Year. We'll get to enjoy a decent chunk of 2012 before the world ends.
